Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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18-C Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- AUCTION -
Boston, Massachusetts
Grogan & Company Holds Sale in New Boston
Gallery
by Francis McQueeney-Jones Mascolo
December 14, 2014, was inauguration day for Grogan & Com-
pany, which had its first sale in its new quarters in Boston. The
highlight was an Art Deco necklace of platinum, jadeite, pearls,
diamonds, and sapphires that whizzed past its estimate ($8000/12,000)
to $90,000 (includes buyer’s premium). Other jewelry lots included a
platinum and 5.19-carat square emerald-cut diamond ring that sold for
$60,000 and a pair of Tiffany and Company platinum, 18k yellow gold,
diamond, and yellow diamond pansy ear clips that brought $21,600.
Grogan clients and Beacon Hill neighbors crowded into Grogan’s new
gallery on Charles Street, once known as antiques row, to have a look,
to scout for Christmas presents, and then to stay and bid. (See Jeanne
Schinto’s “After Almost 20 Years in the Suburbs, Grogan & Company
Moves to Boston” in the October 2014 edition of Maine Antique Digest,
p. 38-B.) The gallery has less square footage than the Dedham space,
but location and neighborhood amenities count for a lot. There is plenty
of room for paintings, rugs, and
jewelry; while lots of large fur-
niture might be a squeeze, it is
still doable.
Grogan and Company began
as they mean to go on, as Lucy
Grogan, vice president and
gallery director, opened the
proceedings. When her father,
Michael, the president and chief
auctioneer, took up the gavel to spell her he mused about his newly
restructured company: “You have them, you nurture them, you educate
them, and they end up signing your paycheck.”
Japanese material more than held its own. A 34" high Japanese carved
and polychromed wood figure of Bishamonten, the guardian king of the
North, thought to be of the Heian period (794-1185), brought $11,400
(est. $500/1000).
A Chinese blue and white cut velvet robe, from about 1900, with
an embroidered collar and skirt, sold for $3900 against the $300/500
estimate.
Michael Grogan said he withdrew three carved rhinoceros horns from
the sale at the eleventh hour. Recent stories in the press about the sale of
objects made from endangered species spurred him to rethink their sale.
He continues to investigate the restrictions governing the sale of such
objects and expects to offer them in a future auction when the ramifica-
tions of the sale of such material are crystal clear.
Despite provenance that included John Nicholas Brown II (1900-
1979) of Providence, Rhode Island, a fine late 18th-century Federal
mahogany linen chest (81" x 48" x 21") was estimated at $2000/4000
and sold for $660.
A 19th-century surgeon’s kit, made by and stamped “Tiemann, N.
York,” dated from about 1830 and included medical instruments, a brass
scale, and bottled powders and remedies. Estimated at $1500/2500, it
sold for $3600. In contrast, a 19th-century Georgian mahogany drinks
box with four gilt-decorated decanters and a drinking glass made $660.
Puts a new spin on what is your poison.
The highlight of the paintings that sold was Sevilla, 18½" x 28", by
Emilio Sánchez Perrier (1855-1907), which sold within estimate for
$30,000. Perrier’s oil on panel October on the Andalucia River, 10" x
20", went to the same Connecticut dealer in the gallery for $9600.
The same buyer took three watercolors by the Swedish-born Birger
Sandzén (1871-1954). A 1929 Colorado Pines, 21 3/8" x 26 3/8",
brought $15,600; a 1926 Pond and Wheat Fields, McPherson County,
Kansas, 9 5/8" x 13 5/8", was $12,000; and a 1926 By the Seashore,
Kullen, Sweden, 9¼" x 13 1/8", fetched $6600.
Two phone bidders and the Internet chased a 7" x 12" oil on board river
scene, Argenteuil , by French painter Charles François Daubigny (1817-
1878). It went to the on-line bidder for $10,200 (est. $1000/1500). The
Orientalist oil on canvas scene Devant la Port Bab al Nasr, Le Caire,
20" x 30", by Italian artist Mariano De’Francesci (1849-1896) sold on
line for $9600. The signed pastel on board landscape Autumn Elegy,
10¾" x 13 7/8", by Russian artist Isaac Ilyitch Levitan (1860-1900)
brought $9000 from a phone bidder. Deluge, a 13 1/8" x 9½" gouache
and ink on paper by Fernand Léger (1881-1955), was a very good buy
when it went to the Internet for $6000.
Twentieth-century artworks, particularly those by American artists,
were particularly successful.
The phones claimed Blue with Red, a 37¼" x 25½" 1988 woodblock
print by Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993), at $20,400. Songe de Lamon
et de Dryas, 19" x 14", based on Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et
Chloe, by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was signed in pencil and num-
bered 50/60. Estimated at $8000/12,000, it brought $11,400 from the
same phone bidder.
Bishopstone Church, a 21½" x 26½" gouache on paper by British art-
ist John Egerton Piper (1903-1992), was made around 1946 or 1947
and was accompanied by a smaller gouache of the same subject, also
by Piper. The lot sold for $15,600 (est. $3000/5000). Piper served as an
official war artist from 1940 to 1942 and painted a view of the damage
of Coventry Cathedral the day after an air raid destroyed it.
Across the Valley, a 28" x 36" oil on canvas on plywood backing by
Robert Bruce Crane (1857-1937), sold in the gallery for $12,000. The
painting, which bore a Grand Central Art Galleries label, left the gallery
under the arm of the successful bidder.
Agroup of paintings from a Provincetown collection that was shown in
the 2007 exhibition Glimpses of a Provincetown Collection at the Cape
Cod Museum of Art and at the St. Botolph Club in Boston in 2010 was
sold, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the Cape Cod Museum of
“You have them,
you nurture them,
you educate
them, and they
end up signing
your paycheck.”
Art. The highlight was Long Point, Provincetown,
a 20" x 30" oil on canvas by Arthur Morris Cohen
(1928-2012) from 1970. Estimated at $3000/5000,
it sold for $9600. The 2002 oil on canvas Crying
Cardinal, 26" x 26", by Provincetown artist Selina
Trieff (1934-2015) was from the same group and
went to an on-line buyer for $2700.
Before the Storm, Martha’s Vineyard , a 1970 oil
on canvas, 40" x 42", signed and dated by the Pari-
sian-born Abstract Expressionist artist Albert S.
Alcalay (1917-2008), was estimated at $1500/2500
and sold for $8400. The artist lived for many years
in Brookline, Massachusetts, and spent summers on
the Vineyard.
Subway , a colorful 3-D lithograph collage, 14½" x
40¼" x 5", by Red Grooms (b. 1937), number 44 of
75, was estimated at $2000/3000 and sold for $5400.
A mixed lot included a 1970 pair of color litho-
graphs/silkscreens on Arjomari paper by Frank
Stella (b. 1936). Ouray , numbered 52 of 70, and
Telluride, numbered 42 of 75, both of which mea-
sured 16" x 22", together with a three-color screen-
print on paper by German artist Josef Albers (1888-
1976), Gray Instrumentation II d , 11½" x 11½",
sold for $4800. Stella’s lithograph, linocut, and
screenprint in colors with hand-coloring and col-
lage Then Came Death and Took the Butcher, 62" x
50½", numbered 51 of 60 and dated 1984, sold for
$3900. A 1985 lithograph by Jim Dine (b. 1935) in
color on paper, The Confetti Heart, 35½" x 24¾",
was numbered 49 of 400. It sold for $3000 (est.
$800/1200).
Works from earlier centuries were fewer in
number, but interest was strong. The oil on can-
vas still life Waterfowl, 35" x 45½", in the man-
ner of Dutch painter Melchior d’Hondecoeter
(1636-1695), bore an exhibition label from the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and doubled the
high estimate when it sold for $6000.
A bright oil on board autumn landscape (10"
x 13¾") by John Joseph Enneking (1841-1916)
sold on the phone for $3900, and his Spring
Landscape, an approximately 14¼" x 20" oil
on board, brought $1800. The pastel on canvas
The Cypresses, Varenna, by New York artist
Charles Warren Eaton (1857-1937) sold within
estimate for $3900.
A 19th-century white marble figure depict-
ing Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, as
Lucy Grogan is vice president and gallery director of
Grogan & Company.
Michael B. Grogan is the president and chief auc-
tioneer of Grogan & Company. His wife, Nancy
H. Grogan, is the vice president of the company
they began back in 1987—also in Boston.
Gentle Stanley is Lucy Grogan’s shadow. He
seldom takes his eyes off her and follows her
everywhere.
The highlight of the sale was an
Art Deco necklace of platinum,
jadeite, pearls, diamonds, and sap-
phires that whizzed past its esti-
mate ($8000/12,000) to $90,000. The
24½" long necklace was not signed
but was accompanied by its origi-
nal red leather pearl folder marked
“Cartier” and came from a Brook-
line, Massachusetts, collection. It
went to a Chinese-American buyer
who outbid the area trade. Photo
courtesy Grogan & Company.
The color lithograph
and collage on paper,
number 65 of 75, by
British artist David
Hockney (b. 1937)
was signed and dated
1984-85. It came
from a Boston estate
and realized $21,600
(est. $10,000/15,000).
Photo courtesy Gro-
gan & Company.
Swedish-born artist Birger Sandzén (1871-1954)
arrived in the U.S. in 1894 to teach languages and
assist in the art department at Bethany College
in Kansas. He was a prolific painter, who com-
pleted more than 2600 oil paintings and some 500
watercolors. His 1929 Colorado Pines (21 3/8" x
26 3/8") brought $15,600.